"Argo" and Political Network Activism

This weekend, I went to see the movie "Argo". It tells the true story of the CIA operation that got six U.S. State Department workers out of Iran in the wake of the 1979 take over of the embassy in Tehran. Though the movie is predominantly about the execution of the operation and the cooperation -- or sometimes lack thereof -- between the U.S. government departments involved in trying to resolve this diplomatic and national sovereignty nightmare, it also subtly highlighted the use of media technology by both the Americans and the Iranian revolutionaries.

 What particularly struck me were the scenes depicting the Iranian students' use of live television and radio broadcasts to both to alert the world to their views and demands and to keep the movement alive. It was a clear of example of "activists... historically [relying] on media outlets for purposes of mobilization, validation and scope enlargement." ("The Whole Online World is Watching"; Harp, Bachmann, and Guo, International Journal of Communication 6 (2012): 301). Above is an ABC news report from Nov. 11, 1979, just six days after the hostages were taken. Though not from the students' perspective, it does show how they would utilize the media attention they had garnered from their initial act to perpetuate their movement. Like the Egyptian activists of 2011, those who took over the U.S. Embassy were utilizing all the latest media technologies(particularly the growing satellite networks of news broadcasters) at their disposal to reach the entire world with their demands.

Merlyna Lim argued about 21st century Egypt that "[social] media were not the only or even the principal source of information of political mobilization", and the same can be said of the Iranian Revolution (Lim, "Clicks, Cabs, and Coffee Houses", Journal of Communication, 62 (2012): 244). The media were just the brokers of connections between groups that were already fired up over the perceived injustice of the U.S. granting asylum to the Shah after what he had done to their country, and the means to globalize (possibly unintentionally) a domestic movement (Lim, 244). We should all be impressed they managed to keep fervor for the situation alive for 444 days without having a Facebook, Twitter, Blog or texting campaign.

As I stated in class, a network doesn't have to be formulated around the Internet. People have been forming networks for thousands of years; it's what we do to expand our capabilities. But what the Iranian Revolution and the more contemporary Egyptian revolution highlight is that technology has accelerated networking and subsequent political activism. Whether it be through TV news broadcasts or through Facebook, media are just another means to connect to networks that will extend our voices and our ideas, helping those who wish to utilize them for political ends achieve their goals in a shorter time frame with wider involvement.

Globaloney: No, the world isn't flat

We've previously hypothesized about the fading relevance of national borders in this ever-globalized world. In response to our many class discussions the extent of globalization and internationalism with Professor Hayden, a reality check from Professor Pankaj Ghemawat, an economist and professor at IESE Business School in Spain:

In his TED talk, which centers on a few key data points, Ghemawat chalks up the popularity of talking about the “world being one” and how “the world is flat” to lack of research, peer pressure, and "exaggerated conceptions of how technology is going to overpower—in the very immediate run—all cultural barriers, all political barriers, all geographic barriers.”

He acknowledges how he is often confronted with questions about Facebook’s role in connecting people across borders. “Theoretically,” he says, “[Facebook] makes it as easy to form friendships halfway around the world as opposed to right next door.” However, he poses, “What percentage of people’s friends on Facebook are actually located in countries other than where they are based? For all this talk about how flat the world is, Ghemawat highlights how approximately only 10 to 15 percent of Facebook users have friends that are not geographically located in the same country in which they live. This amount—although not negligible, he admits, indicates that although “we don’t live in an entirely local or national world,” the level of globalization in the world is “very, very far from the 90 percent level you would expect.” 

So, he argues, extreme views of globalization propagated by authors such as Naomi Klein and Tom Friedman (for whom the game of golf is an inspirational source) is pure baloney, or as Ghemawat puts it, “globaloney!” 

He goes on to say that:

“Globaloney is very harmful to [our] health. Being accurate about how limited globalization levels are is critical to even being able to notice that there might be room for something more, something that might contribute further to global welfare. Avoiding overstatement is very helpful because it reduces and in some cases even reverses some people’s fears about globalization.” 

His data supports such assertions. Taking an extreme view of globalization does seem at worst, naive, and at most, dangerous. Erring on the side of caution is best. Overestimating how interconnected our world is—and how inclusive it is, in Castell's sense of the word—puts us as risk for pigeonholing our perspective of the true effects and the short-, medium- and long-term trajectory of communication. 

Communicating American Exceptionalism: An Interruption to Progress?

More often than not, U.S. citizens are likely to carry the notion that the United States "excels at everything," as a recent op-ed by Scott Shane in the New York Times points out. (Click here to read the piece.) Why is this the case? Broadly speaking, perhaps mainstream belief in American exceptionalism is a mixed result that stems from the writing of history (especially after World War II) and the predominance of mass-media, agenda-setting, and the hunger for revenue in the business of communication. 

Illustration by Ji Lee, photograph: Zhang Jun/Xinhua/ZUMAPRESS

Some new facts is sure to sell over others. Shane highlights the U.S. presidential campaign as a key example of how both candidates seem to neglect mentioning certain news facts. He writes:

"IMAGINE a presidential candidate who spoke with blunt honesty about American problems, dwelling on measures by which the United States lags its economic peers.

What might this mythical candidate talk about on the stump? He might vow to turn around the dismal statistics on child poverty, declaring it an outrage that of the 35 most economically advanced countries, the United States ranks 34th, edging out only Romania. He might take on educational achievement, noting that this country comes in only 28th in the percentage of 4-year-olds enrolled in preschool, and at the other end of the scale, 14th in the percentage of 25-to-34-year-olds with a higher education. He might hammer on infant mortality, where the United States ranks worse than 48 other countries and territories, or point out that, contrary to fervent popular belief, the United States trails most of Europe, Australia and Canada in social mobility."

All this truth-telling, Shane concludes, wouldn't get any U.S. presidential candidate far--regardless of their party affiliation. Such a truth-telling candidate "is, in fact, all but unimaginable in our political culture." He explains this is saying, "Americans demand constant reassurance that their country, their achievements and their values are extraordinary." In short, American culture demands to have its greatness validated over and over again.

But what happens when there is room for improvement? As Shane highlights, there is, actually, much room for improvement. If politicians play a significant role in Michael Billig's theory of banal nationalism--and their presence, impassioned speeches, and actions reinforce some national sense of value, community, and cohesive identity--how would their behavior and rhetoric motivate the public to do something about the high incidence of child poverty in the United States? 

Communication is intrinsic to political awareness. If political leaders continue to primarily focus their rhetoric on America's greatness, how are they to motivate or jolt the American public into action to improve the country's national standing in preschool education and infant mortality? 

"They Will Never Take Our Freedom!": Separatist Media and Scotland's New Referendum Agreement

On Monday, October 15th, Parliament gave the a-ok for Scotland to hold a referendum in 2014. But this is no ordinary referendum. In fact, it could potentially show that the Scottish people do in fact want to separate themselves from the United Kingdom for good. After nearly 400 years of "unity" with Britain and Wales, we may by the end of the decade need to show our passports just to go from London to Edinburgh. (See the Al-Jazeera video that explains the situation pretty in-depth: "Scotland's Independence Referendum Deal Inked")

The implications for just a cessation would be huge on the international political arena. If a state like Scotland could separate from its long-time overloads (hence the quotations around unity above) and feasibly make it as an independent nation on an international scale, could other states like Kashmir and South Sudan viably do the same? Of course, a region like Kashmir, due to a half-century of violent upheaval, does not have the same infrastructure in place that Scotland does; having been a member of one of the premier world powers for so long has done a lot in the way of giving the Scots a political, economic, and cultural system that could support itself on the world stage.

But what Scotland does have in common with those other regions fighting for independence from larger powers is that the movement has stayed in the minds of its people, especially through the use of media in the last century. Lets look at big-budget movies for an example. Who doesn't know of Mel Gibson's iconic speech in Braveheart and learned about the independence movement for which William Wallace so desperately fought? Less well-known would be the Bollywood hit Dil Se which dealt with tensions in regions of India that are so far removed from the administration of Delhi, both geographically and culturally. But even regional films, such as some produced for Tamil speakers, keep a different cultural identity alive within the greater context of a nationalism based on one idea of the nation.

Dil Se Movie Poster

There are many more examples of film I could give (Mary Queen of Scots comes to mind), but what I do not know is to what extent social media, the Internet, satellites, and other recent technology innovations are keeping separatist movements alive around the globe. It certainly would be interesting to find out, since a lot of the digital technologies would also allow for more freedom of expression. The ease of access to it (versus, say the access to a printing press 300 years ago) and the sense of anonymity it can afford could potentially allow for stronger separatist movements to form. Besides, it would be hard for a government to police the Internet for every single blog post about independence. We have seen social media work to form the Arab Spring, so why not apply it to Scottish Independence?

Overall, this is the same conversation we have heard in our readings regarding diasporas. Forging a new identity within the context of a nation with which they do not necessarily identify. What the potential independence of Scotland shows us it is not just migrants who are using media to keep alive identities (or sometimes forging new ones). Communication scholars need to also look within nations, and discover what media is being utilized by separatists to both spur independence and keep a different national identity alive.

However, one cannot help but wonder what the implications of producing such media are today versus twenty years ago. For now, globalization means the eye of the world can be on this media production, and nations not directly involved in the struggle for identity can now participate in and shape the movements (Darfur anyone?). The whole world could now potentially take up the battle cry of these regions/ethnic populations, all because media circulated their message of "never taking their freedom".

Mel Gibson in Braveheart

“Prosumer” as Second Nature

In class last week we talked about how the linear conception of sending and receiving information is evolving. In his essay entitled “Convergence Culture in the Creative Industries”, Mark Deuze discusses the “convergence of the cultures of production and consumption of media” within creative industries. He states that the distinction between producers and consumers of media content are blurring, creating a “prosumer”. He remarks that these “collaborations” have always existed in the past, but are much more visible and ubiquitous within the age of the Internet. This is certainly true as well outside the world of creative industries he focused on in journalism, games, marketing and advertising.

With social media platforms, and the rise of participatory and interactive media, “prosumers” can exercise an increased amount of control over what they see, hear, watch, etc. It seems like being a prosumer has become second nature to us. We like to share information through blogging, status updates, sharing links to articles, posting videos and photos, liking, commenting, tweeting, re-tweeting, following, etc., without really thinking twice about it. For example, the virtual responses to the presidential debate last week manifested themselves in the form of websites, Tumblr pages, memes, to name a few, which became news headlines the following day.

We also discussed the participatory nature of platforms such as social media through the lens of the ritual view of communication, first proposed by James Carey in “A Cultural Approach to Communication”. These platforms are a way of shaping the way we belong, reinforcing our sense of community within the virtual world. There is a strong sense of individual agency being fostered, where we are now potentially more inclined to determine where, when, and how we consume media.

Neo-Catharsis in Global Media? : The Question of "Dallas" and World Popularity

When I figured out the focal point of Katz and Liebes’ “Reading Television” article, I couldn’t help but once again roll my eyes. As some may remember, a few weeks ago I had a very visceral reaction to Prof. Hayden’s mentioning of studies done regarding Dallas. And if you don’t remember, let it suffice to say that my reaction is because I feel this show’s content is just plain embarrassing to a resident of the Dallas/Fort Worth area, and probably for most Texans in general.

Getting past my need to run away screaming from the article and my memories of the citizen diplomacy headaches the show has caused (that could be a whole other post entirely), I became intrigued – as Katz and Liebes did – as to why this show during the 1980s reached a global audience and managed to create a fan-base out of that audience. And, from my anti-Dallas perspective, why on earth was this show the one that was able to change how we view the audience in international communication? 

One answer from the article that intrigued me was that global audiences became involved with the show because “it [was] not considered serious artistically and… because of its perceived distance from viewers’ reality.” (Katz and Liebes, “Reading Television…”, IC Reader, 377) In other words, the farther away one is removed from the context of a show or film, the more likely one is to interact with it. From my own experiences, I believe that this is one accurate perspective on audience involvement. My grandparents watch a large volume of Bollywood, Korean, and Middle Eastern films on their Netflix account, but can only watch one or two European movies every two months. When I ask my grandfather about their viewing experience with different movies, he is always goes into more detail on the usually French or German film they just watched (and typically did not like); for say a Bollywood film, he usually just replies, “It was so enjoyable.”

The farther away one is from a film’s context, I would argue the more one is likely to “just feel” instead of critically think. But this idea of using a medium to experience emotions is not a new one. Though Aristotle never really provided a clear-cut definition of the term, most people would understand that theatrical tragedies allow us to have proxies for emotions that we shouldn’t express in the real world; they allow us to experience “catharsis”. What if the circulation of media around the globe has become popular because of a psychological need being fulfilled by foreign film and television that our own is no longer able to fulfill? 

But does such catharsis still have to come through only tragedies (as one could describe Dallas… and yes I do mean to invoke the term’s multiple layers of meaning)? Or can comedies like Big Bang Theory or historical films like Joyeaux Noël move their audience so deeply that the whole world becomes a fan base? Now, almost thirty years on, would such theories as to the popularity of Dallas even be applicable, since the world has become more globally connected and simultaneously more fragmented in terms of audience participation? It is harder to get such a mass of people to watch one show when there are a plethora of channels and genres available to them because of technology. But it certainly would be interesting to look at the contemporary ramifications of foreign media on different cultural psyches and see whether or not we do enjoy them because they allow us to “let go” and have the “id unbound” (377, quoting Gitlin).

Breaking with tradition: Individual agency in mass communication

How do individual actors and modern day networks effect the traditional communication system? One of the traditional views of communication is expressed in the Shannon and Weaver sender-receiver model (drawn below, credit goes to Stephen Billig). 

Their 1949 model was based on radio transmission and highlighted the roles of the encoder (message originator), the message, the channel (through which the message is sent, e.g. radio or telephone), the decoder, and noise, or the risk of environmental interferences with the message. If the intended recipient successfully understands ("decodes") what the sender intended to him/her to understand, then the model is successfully realized. Amazing! 

If not, then it's a game of Telephone gone very, very wrong. For better or for worse. Right?

And maybe hilariously so. (Like Norman Rockwell depicted above, for an edition of the Saturday Evening Post.) Let's be honest here. Even with technology at our fingertips and ears--keyboards, headsets, bluetooth devices--it is rare that we successfully fulfill the Shannon and Weaver model. While we are gigabytes and exabytes ahead of Rockwell's time, our lovely human propensity for curiosity, laughter, and sense of scandal prevail. 

And, more often that not, our communications with others can get fuzzy. Though technology is increasingly used in place of face-to-face contact, it is not always the best medium for transmission of information. Skype drops out. You can't read your mother's face at the other end of the telephone when you tell her you had not one, but two hotdogs for dinner. From a cart. And the emoticons on GChat can't convey tone or accurately convey non-verbal reactions. (They're still missing an appropriate sarcasm emoticon.)

When it comes to mass media (instead of just the usual neighborhood gossip), what happens when we are part of the encoding process, and not just the decoding work? Professor Hayden highlighted this puzzle when he discussed the "the pervasiveness of mass self communication that preferences networks over nation states." This ability to mass self communicate -- via Twitter, Facebook, and Reddit -- seemingly "allows us to be reflexive consumers of information." In other words, he noted, "We also create agency over how, when and why what we consume as information, do with it, and create it."

Such thoughts are a fascinating way to frame this new era of communication and the complex issues that arise from it (including debates over fair use and copy right laws). 

The upside to all these debates is that although there are complexities that come with all of these developments, there are also benefits and exciting usage of technology that come out of the increasing role of individual agency in the mass communication process. See U.S. Ambassador to Korea Sung Kim's "Ask the Ambassador" video above. (Spoiler: I hope PSY doesn't request that he take it down because it includes snippets of "Gangnam Style".) More of Amb. Sung's videos are available here: http://www.youtube.com/user/USEmbassySeoul.